Introduction

America's interests in Africa date back to 1786, at which time Morocco officially recognized the new United States of America. Within six years, the United States had established a consulate, and soon thereafter, other legations were opened along the North African coast. The United States also engaged militarily the Barbary pirates. During the following century, America's diplomatic interests in Africa concerned mostly the Portuguese territories, the Congo, and Liberia — which had been established as a bit of an American cultural outpost by freed American slaves. At the Berlin Conference in 1884–5 at which Africa was carved up among the European colonial powers, the United States participated mostly in an observer capacity, and expressed some humanitarian and commercial concerns. Except for these modest activities, and the concern expressed about Ethiopia's fate in the face of Italy's military incursion prior to World War II, the United States had traditionally viewed Africa mostly out of anthropological curiosity, expressed more often in the pages of National Geographic magazine than in government documents regarding America's diplomatic interests in the world.KeywordsUnited StatesAfrican ContinentAfrica TodayNational Security StrategyUnited States PolicyThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

Ancient history · Cold war · Colonialism · Diplomacy · Economic history · Geography · Government (linguistics) · Political science · Politics · Portuguese · African history and culture studies · History · Law

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